"But now the media they relied on have lost their monopoly. Everyone who's fired at gets to fire back, shot for shot." --Peggy Noonan
Posted on 01/12/2006 7:53:44 AM PST by raccoonradio
Until yesterday, US Senate confirmation hearings for Sam Alito's Supreme Court nomination didn't appear to be providing talk radio with an especially compelling topic, aside from the occasional sound bite of Sen. Ted Kennedy's jerky antics.
Clearly, public interest lies somewhere between previous grillings of John Roberts (boring) and Clarence Thomas (edge of your seat excitement).
Wednesday, however, as tears emerged from an overwhelmed Mrs. Alito, everything changed. Suddenly, Democrats who had clearly overplayed a very weak hand against the judge were exposed as mere garden-variety bullies.
Now, thanks to Teddy and his desperate friends, talk radio and the blogosphere have been handed a winning issue. And beyond sound bites, there is now an overriding theme: that Democrats are losing the battle to prove the built-in evil of every Republican nominee.
Writing for OpinionJournal.com, Peggy Noonan sums it up best:
But this one is all kind of over, isn't it?
It definitively ended when Mrs. Alito walked out in tears. But to me it seemed over on day one. The Democrats on the committee seemed forlorn in a way, as if they knew deep in their hearts that nobody's listening.
Two decades ago they could make their speeches and fake their indignation and accuse a Robert Bork of being a racist chauvinist woman hater and their accusations would ring throughout the country.
But now the media they relied on have lost their monopoly. Everyone who's fired at gets to fire back, shot for shot.
It's all changed.
----------------
Other than to give talk radio and blogs a perpetual punching bag, of what use is Sen. Kennedy these days? Noonan also pegs Teddy's evolution into a cartoon caricature: ---------------
In this, in the hearings, he (Sen. Biden) is unlike Ted Kennedy in that he doesn't seem driven by some obscure malice--Uh, I, uh, cannot, uh, remembuh why I hate you, Judge Alioto, but there, uh, must be a good reason and I will, um, damn well find it.
When he peers over his glasses at Judge Alito he is like an old woman who's unfortunately senile and quite sure the teapot on the stove is plotting against her.
---------- Next up for talk radio: watching Democrats retreat, as the backlash over heavy-handed antics threatens a significant dip in their approval ratings. Noonan's right, this ended with Mrs. Alito's tears.
Kennedy really needs to retire. If I was a democrat, I'd be insisting on it. He's an embarrassment.
ROTFLMBO!
You already know who lost on this. Witness the vile defense of the Dims by the bitter partisans.
It's over.
Just because the Demoncrats find themselves in a hole doesn't mean that they will stop digging.
He single-handedly keeps the local liquor stores afloat.
These are the days the Democrats were dreading after they lost the last elections.
Peggy Noonan Rules!
Funny lines!!!!!
LOL! ;-D
>>Kennedy really needs to retire.
He's up for re-election this year; a couple GOP challengers that nobody has heard of. Huge war chest. Ted has been in
office since the year I was born. Next month I turn 44...
There's no way he'd retire, not unless he got one of his
brood (Joe? Son Patrick "Patches"?) to keep the seat.
Ted turns 74 next month. If it were up to him he'd
stay till 99 or 100.
Please FReepmail me if you want on or off my ‘miscellaneous’ ping list.
True. Roberts for Rehnquist was essentially a wash (although time will tell), and Alito for (moderate) O'Connor gives us a slight edge. Replacing one of the leftists with a conservative is what's needed to swing the balance decisively.
Wasn't liquor/bootlegging the family business, ironically enough? Howie Carr was saying yesterday that he was surprised Ted's brand of choice was Chivas Regal and not Black and White, which was one of the products the Kennedy family distributed...
From JFK's obit, found online: "Kennedy's father, Joseph Patrick Kennedy was a self-improving multi-millionaire who had built a financial empire through ventures in banking, the stock market, ship building and the motion picture industry and liquor distribution."
"One day papa called me to his dyin bed
Put his hands on my shoulders And in tears he said
Patches, I'm depending on you son
To pull the family through
My son, it's all left up to you"
--Clarence Carter, 1970
But now the media they relied on have lost their monopoly. Everyone who's fired at gets to fire back, shot for shot.
It's all changed.
&&&
Which I could share that optimistic assessment. We're on our way, but we're not there yet.
**
This line made me laugh out loud!
Sen. Kennedy these days?....When he peers over his glasses at Judge Alito he is like an old woman who's unfortunately senile and quite sure the teapot on the stove is plotting against her.
I love Ted Olson, but wouldn't it be entertaining to see the Dems going ballistic over the fact that Ted was the one to take the case to the Supreme Court where they "chose" Bush to be President? He would be a great Supreme Court Justice.
There is no reason for Senator Kennedy to retire. He's got a lifetime sinecure, interrupted only briefly every six years by the need to make a few extra speeches while awaiting the inevitable defeat of whatever luckless soul the Massachusetts Republican Party talks into taking two in the hat for the Team. Even as the years have passed, there still are numerous voters in the Bay State who would rather pull the lever for a dead (or at least alcoholically-embalmed) Kennedy than for a live Republican.
...but it isn't up to him. It is up to his liver!
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